Yes it should be available and now is. It is forced with no way to turn it off for normal Shopify stores. For some of us this is unacceptable as we have elderly clients and they cannot navigate captcha at checkout, causing us to lose sales.
Topic summary
Merchants report mass “card testing” bot attacks at checkout and want CAPTCHA or SMS/email PIN verification to slow fraud. They say hundreds of failed card attempts occur until one succeeds.
Availability and limits:
- A setting called Checkout Protection was cited, but others note it’s limited to Shopify Plus (Shopify’s enterprise plan) and not available on standard plans.
- One Plus merchant without Shopify Payments says they still cannot add reCAPTCHA at checkout, suggesting availability may depend on both plan and processor.
- A screenshot was shared indicating reCAPTCHA applies to login/create account and comment forms, not checkout.
Conflicting reports:
- One standard-plan merchant says CAPTCHA was temporarily forced on their checkout, then removed after a support ticket. They request it be optional due to accessibility/age-related friction.
Workarounds and constraints:
- Adding client-side CAPTCHA in theme code is ineffective without server-side verification, so bots bypass it.
Sentiment and outcomes:
- Strong frustration that checkout CAPTCHA is paywalled; small businesses feel exposed to fraud and potential chargebacks.
- No confirmed solution for non-Plus stores; discussion remains unresolved with calls for Shopify to enable optional checkout CAPTCHA for all plans.